I feel like every person in this thread that cannot fathom how he feared for his life has never had personal experience dealing with someone with severe mental illness, in their family or in public or something. Direct experience, though, of interacting with a large, loud, mentally ill person.
If you think you can just assume a stranger you encounter who shoves a phone in your face is mentally healthy, you're missing some facts of life.
The youtuber is 6 foot 5. Someone that tall is going to be intimidating if they get in your face and will not fuck off when asked regardless of what your prior experiences are. This guy knows he scares people. Thats the point of his channel. I mean the dude calls himself the goon squad. He knows hes being an asshole. He gets into peoples' faces, scares the shit out of them and films the reaction.
You dont need to have dealt with mental illness to have that feeling.. you just have to had trauma in the past. I have been jumped 2 times in the past by gang members, and you bet your fucking ass I get absolutely anxious if some stranger gets up to my face... good times
did I? or did I just make the logical conclusion feom thwir words, he just said lthat you can't assume someone is mentally healthy when he approaches you and puts a phone in your face, he said many people don't understand the trauma of dealing with mentally ill people and feeling threatened thus justifying the actions of the person who shot the youtuber.
I really did not, what else is there to interpret from his words?
as long as you feel threatened and you have past trauma with mentally ill people, you can shoot them in a public place and call it self-defense, it's just how the US works.
How is that a ridiculous when OP was defending a guy who shot someone by saying "every person in this thread that cannot fathom how he feared for his life has never had personal experience dealing with someone with severe mental illness" and "If you think you can just assume a stranger you encounter who shoves a phone in your face is mentally healthy, you’re missing some facts of life".
What in the world else do you think that could have meant other than that it's okay to fear for your life and defend yourself with deadly force because someone is acting mentally ill?
Can you then not empathize with how this delivery driver was afraid for his life? Not necessarily taking his time and thinking through his options, but reasonably in an actual state of irrational fear?
That's fine. But it does mean there was no malice, as the jury eventually decided as well. He could have reasonably been afraid for his life, as he had no way to know if this 6'5" individual was sane or very much not.
I mentioned this in another thread but I keep thinking about Trayvon Martin and how upset I was that Zimmerman was released and got his gun back. I feel like our country is increasingly more acceptable of gun violence as a fact of life. How could precedents like this be applied to future cases? I'm not claiming to have all the answers I'm just not convinced that this is the best decision. I could be wrong though. It wouldn't be the first time.
... I think you're right, we are becoming a little more accustomed to gun violence, of the large-scale type especially. While I think we've always had a lot of gun violence in general, especially if you include gang/organized crime activity, the 24/7 unending stream of news makes exposure to stories of it a lot more consistent and even.
Regarding how the precedent could influence things into the future, I'm not sure.